Well
April is here and the first Blue Marlin has not been caught from Port Aransas
yet. I heard about a new floater out past Dutra from my good friend Thomas
Hilton of Hilton’s Offshore, so a call to a couple of my clients Jeff Shadrock
Sr. and Jeff Jr. and we were off for another Deep Sea Adventure. I have
just gotten the 37’ Bertram named the “Samaki” back from a long stay in Fort
Lauderdale, FL. And Venice, LA, so I was anxious to if she still raised fish
like the old days. I decided to leave a little late on the morning of the
April 02, 2005 as a strong cold front had visited the day before, as it turns
out the winds were less than 10 knots and the seas were flat and as we
approached the 35 NM mark the water was very blue like the sea surface chart
from Hilton’s Offshore showed. A nice weed line appeared in the distance
so my deck hand Nick Prater put out the lures, nothing, then on the South Baker
Rock, nothing, then to the rigs, nothing, we ended up trolling all the way to
the Falcon Rig before we had any action and the was only one small Wahoo on the
Texas Turd and Bird. We decided to head to East Breaks, as the sun was
going down all was quiet we backed off the throttles to put out Ballyhoo on glow
skirts and Capt. Wayne Durrance headed for the Oceanic America at a slow troll.
As with most floaters you can see the lights from almost 20 NM which makes the
trip seem that much longer and the anticipation that much greater! We
arrived at the floater just before midnight and started to troll seeing an
occasional splash from Tuna or some other predator fish, but no takers. As
the morning was upon us we decided to started chunking, that is cut up chum and
sneak a line with a hook in it amongst the mix and we also dropped some Berkley
power baits (big) with a 4oz. Head over the side. In no time at all we had
some weird fish, like a cross between a ribbonfish and a Wahoo, if you can
imagine that and soon there after we boated the first of two tuna and the bite
stopped. At 4:00 am we decided to get a couple of hours rest and dream of
the morning Yellowfin bite. Just before 6:00 am I got the boat and tackle
ready for trolling ballyhoo before I woke up all the sleeping beauties.
With all awake and ready for the Tuna bite we started making our rounds, close
and far no matter where we had no luck, even though the fish were occasionally
busting bait on the surface. So with one last idea left we brought all the
Ballyhoo in and put out only three small lures and ran them waaay back, that was
the ticket even though after a few passes they even figured that out. With
the action slow to say the least, we decided to start our troll back home in
search for something interesting in the next 75 NM miles! I knew something
would happen and it was just a matter of time, then an hour later the old
faithful the Bird and the Turd went screaming…Wahoo and a nice one about 60
pounds. We were closing in on Dutra and I knew we were in for some fun and
it was about time! We approached Dutra and weeds were scattered
everywhere, we were still able to troll using a spread of single hook wide
ranges. With the wind picking up to 18 knots or more we decided to troll
toward the baker or Falcon area, then after an hour or so you could see the
Jeff’s thinking about the long drive back to San Antonio and the inevitable came
“let’s go ahead and head back”. Well as luck would have it from the tower
I had spotted some water breaking in the distance and told them to hold their
horses until we could check it out, as we got closer I saw that it was a pretty
good weed line formed up along a rip. I knew it had to be a good rip
because it was still holding together in the strong wind. We started
trolling the rip and within a few minutes I heard something that sounded like a
fire cracker and immediately saw a huge fish splash where the shotgun was, then
the monster came out of the water and tried for the bird, I don’t know if it was
even the same fish. I looked down on the deck and the line was slack, we
immediately tossed out a throw back Ballyhoo but no takers. Everyone
onboard was amazed at how fast things can happen and upon inspecting the line we
saw a weird slice above the Bimini knot, darn the luck! Well thinking we
may have missed our shot we trolled back up the weed line to make another pass
and the reel went screaming again, but it was only a darn 50# Wahoo. We
got to the spot where the Marlin hit and the Smoking Joe on the left flat went
screaming, the lure ended up coming to the surface 50 yards behind the boat so I
moved the prop wash ballyhoo behind it, then Fish up on the left rigger
Sprocket, it popped the clip and started taking line, damn it went slack, but I
still had the Ballyhoo out and I felt him pick it up, free spool, free spool
then set the drag, he was on a few seconds and we pulled the hooks, Damn again!
We were thinking how bad could we mess this up, what could we have done
different? Well we headed back around to the spot for another go, then the
right rigger clip went down, darn another trash fish, 20# Mahi-Mahi. We
wanted to get to the Marlin mark and decided to move off the weed line so we
didn’t get bothered by those darn Wahoo or Mahi-Mahi, then pow the Ballyhoo went
and the really was screaming, the fish sounded, maybe we have him but he wasn’t
huge unless he didn’t know he was hooked yet. After 20 minutes we guessed
it probably was not a blue and sure enough we had foul hooked a 40# Wahoo in the
stomach, darn! We were wondering are we ever going to get to the Marlin
spot again or do we need to pull in all the lures? We finally started our
troll on the weed line again and sure enough it wasn’t long and we had a Blue up
on the Shotgun, we pulled the hooks and he came at the throw back hard but
dropped it during the free spool. Now I’m thinking, this isn’t funny and
it’s getting dark! Well needless to say we picked up another Wahoo and 2
Mahi-Mahi and decided to call it a day (or two), so the Man in the Blue Suit
still lives, however today is Wednesday and I going to get him tomorrow with me
paying for the fuel myself!